KING, JOHN, first Lord Kingston (d. 1676), was eldest son of Sir Robert King (1599?–1657) [q. v.], by his first wife, Frances, daughter of Sir Henry Folliott, the first lord Folliott of Ballyshannon. His father, on going to England in 1642, entrusted him with the command of Boyle Castle, co. Roscommon. His abilities as a leader were displayed on many occasions, particularly at the relief of Elphin Castle and at the defeat of the Ulster army on 21 June 1650, when he took prisoner with his own hands the general of the catholic army, the popish bishop of Clogher. The parliament accorded him full powers, and on 26 July 1649 ordered him to be paid 100l. from delinquents' estates ‘in consideration of long attendance’ (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1649–50, p. 582). He was then a colonel. On 7 June 1658 he was knighted by Henry Cromwell, lord deputy-general of Ireland (Metcalfe, Book of Knights, p. 215). Having worked hard for the restoration of Charles II, he was created on 4 Sept. 1660 an Irish peer by the title of Baron Kingston, was sworn of the Irish privy council, and was appointed on 19 March 1660–1 a commissioner of the court of claims for the settlement of Ireland. On 8 May 1661 he took his seat in the Irish House of Lords, on 11 May he was made commissary-general of the horse, and on 31 May was added to the committee appointed to consider the erection of a college of physicians in Dublin. On 15 Nov. following he was appointed captain of a troop. With John, lord Berkeley, King was constituted on 2 April 1666 joint-president of Connaught, and on 5 May following sole governor of that province. On 20 April previously he was made colonel of a regiment of horse. On 1 Oct. 1670 he was appointed one of the commissioners to examine and state the arrears due to the king before the commencement of that year, of the farm of the revenue for seven years, and on 15 July 1674 had a grant by patent of a substantial yearly pension. It was also provided by the act of settlement that all his claims to land should be ratified and confirmed to him and his heirs. For his arrears of service before 5 June 1649 he received four several grants of land. By letters patent dated 25 Jan. 1664 he had confirmed to him the town and lands of Kilcolman, with other lands, amounting to some thousands of acres, in the counties of Limerick, Cork, and Kildare.
King died in 1676. He married Catherine (d. 1669), daughter of Sir William Fenton, knt., of Mitchelstown, co. Cork, and left two sons, Robert (d. 1693) [q. v.] and John, successively second and third lords Kingston.
[Lodge's Peerage of Ireland (Archdall), iii. 226.]
KING, Sir JOHN (1639–1677), lawyer, of a Huguenot family of Rouen, originally named Le Roy, was eldest son of John King, M.D., of Aldersgate Street, London, by his second wife, Elizabeth, youngest daughter of Barne Roberts of Willesden, Middlesex. He was born at St. Albans on 5 Feb. 1638–9, and was educated first at the free school there, and then, from the age of thirteen, at Eton, where he obtained a foundation scholarship and became head of the school. He proceeded to Queens' College, Cambridge, in November 1655, and graduated B.A. Though personally desirous of taking orders, by his father's desire in November 1660 he was admitted a member of the Inner Temple, and on 9 Feb. 1667 was called to the bar. He became a bencher of the inn 31 Jan. 1674, and treasurer in 1675. He began his practice by appearing before the commission for the rebuilding of London after the fire, but soon obtained business in Westminster Hall, and eventually a very large chancery practice. He was made a king's counsel and attorney-general to the Duke of York, and on 10 Dec. 1674 was knighted. In 1676 his fees amounted to 4,700l. His fine memory, his polished eloquence, his affable manners, and still more his incredible industry, had secured for him an enormous amount of work, and he was in the front rank of his profession in nine years from his call. Burnet says of him that the court party were weary of ‘Sir William Jones [q. v.], Attorney-general, and were raising Sir John King to vie with him, but he died in his rise, which indeed went on very quick’ (Hist. of my own Time, fol. ed. i. 396). His health broke down under the strain of work, and in his later years he could not sleep more than three hours together. He died at his house in Salisbury Court on 29 June 1677. He was buried in the Temple Church on 4 July, where there is an inscription in the triforium and a stone in the churchyard to his memory.
King married, on 20 Feb. 1666–7, Joyce, daughter and heiress of William Bennett of High Rothing, Essex, by whom he had two sons and five daughters.
[From a family manuscript written by his father in 1677, and contributed to Gent. Mag. lii. 110, reprinted with additions in 1855; Roger North's Life of Lord Keeper Guildford; Chauncy's Hertfordshire, p. 467 a; Echard's History of England, ed. 1718, iii. 438.]
KING, JOHN (d. 1679), covenanting preacher, was for some time domestic chaplain to Henry Erskine, third lord Cardross,
